What You Expect Is What You Get Positive expectations affect performance positively, and negative expectations affect performance negatively, this is the Pygmalion Effect, self-fulfilling prophecy: “expect something to happen, our expectation will tend to make it so�. In 1911 with a famous horse called "Clever Hans," owned by a guy named Mr. Osten, Hans was able to solve math problems, spell, and read by stomping his front hoof onto the ground. Possible? No, Hans received unplanned cues from his questioners/Mr. Osten, at the time of the right answer, the questioners would look up, so Hans the horse would then stop stomping.
In 1968, Mr. Rosenthal, a Professor of Psychology and a Principal named Jacobson, proved that a teacher's expectations influenced the student's performance. Study: IQ tests were completed at the beginning of the school year and again at the end on elementary students. After the first IQ test, random children were chosen, and teachers were advised these where extraordinary children to excel. Teachers having this information in their minds, the teachers gave these children extra help, extra attention, the study showed that these children did do better on the second IQ test at the end of the year, all due to the teacher having this knowledge at the beginning of the year.
Results
A Psychologist was interested in this, then this was the first thought of self-fulfilling prophecy in scientific research. The discovery identified the probability that observers often have particular expectations that may cause them to send unintentional signals to a person or animal being studied.
Method
This research is shown to be the most prevalent in younger aged students at the elementary school. Unable to form any other explanations for the differences in the changes in the IQ test, besides the teacher's expectations, no change for the higher grade students! There were several possibilities that Mr. Rosenthal explains 1. the younger students
are malleable/transformable 2. younger students have lessestablished reputations 3. younger aged students, susceptible to change & unintentional processes which teachers use to communicate, ex: their looks ( face expression ) towards students, postures, touches, more positive. 4. lower grade teachers possibly interact more with their students. In 1974, a study was carried out involving a recording of this teacher-student interaction; the teacher was given information on random children that these specific students were extremely bright, she would accidentally favored these children in indirect ways: smiled more and made more eye contact with these students. Extremely bright students are more likely to enjoy school, receive more valuable comments from teachers, and they will try harder to improve. This study on IQ tests is an unfair advantage to the remaining children that did not get the extra attention during the school year.
Conclusion Traditionally, teachers were given copies of their student's IQ score's beginning of the school year, and this may have been creating unfair self-fulfilling prophecies. Students whom the teachers believe possess more significant potential; these teachers unconsciously convey their higher expectations of these specific bright students, unethical.